Author's odyssey in the archives / Local writer finds inspiration in Louisiana ancestors

Published 4:00 am, Sunday, August 26, 2001

Lalita Tademy of Menlo Park author of "Cane River" outside her home in Menlo Park. Chronicle Photo by Darryl Bush

Lalita Tademy of Menlo Park author of "Cane River" outside her home in Menlo Park. Chronicle Photo by Darryl Bush

Photo: DARRYL BUSH

Author's odyssey in the archives / Local writer finds inspiration in Louisiana ancestors

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Finding out more about long-gone family members has inspired several authors to write best-selling novels based on their discoveries. Lalita Tademy of Menlo Park is the latest to follow in the path popularized by Alex Haley's "Roots."

As vice president of Sun Microsystems, Tademy often found her mind wandering. During high-powered meetings, she'd daydream about her great-grandmother Emily, or Grandma 'Tite, as everybody called her.

Tademy grew up hearing stories about Emily, a beautiful, vivacious woman with the elegant air of Jacqueline Kennedy. She knew Emily was born a slave in Louisiana and died in 1936 with her life's savings hidden in her mattress. But she longed to know more.

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And so when Tademy quit her prestigious but exhausting job six years ago, she didn't spend her days lounging at the beach or hiking in the mountains as she'd planned. The 52-year-old made a daily drive from her home to the National Archives and Records Administration's building in San Bruno.

"Part of it is the hunt, conquering chaos," she says of her lifelong love for genealogy. "There are so many gaps and you've got to figure out what it all is."

Through months of research -- or "detective work," as she calls it -- and trips to the tiny community of Cane River, La., Tademy got to know Emily and three generations of women who came before: Philomene, Suzette and Elisabeth.

After finding more than 1,000 documents about her family, including Elisabeth's bill of sale, Tademy spun the facts into a novel, "Cane River" (Warner Books, $24.95). It's quickly become a best-seller and is now, gasp, part of Oprah's book club.

"I'd encourage everyone to seek out their family histories and the stories firsthand," she says. "We all think we don't have enough time, but then we get older and realize these stories could get lost."

Sure, the international book tour and critical acclaim have been nice, but Tademy's greatest accomplishment, she says, is reconnecting with the women who came before her. Her favorite? Her spunky, no-nonsense great-great-grandmother, Philomene.

"She scares me, she's one tough woman," Tademy says. "I felt very, very bound to her. In some of the most discouraging times, the times when things just seemed too hard, it was really Philomene who kept me at it."

Learning about the painful lives her ancestors endured -- including rapes, beatings and family members being sold to faraway plantations -- was sometimes almost too much to bear.

"It's one thing to know it and it's another thing to know it," Tademy says. "It was the difference between acknowledging something in percentage terms and putting a face to it. They became real for me, which meant I had to try to relate that to who I am."

But it also gave Tademy a healthy dose of perspective.

"Anytime that I have the inclination to whine about how hard my life is, I have to stop myself," she says. "These women's lives were so hard and I have so many options.

"Everything they went through, they did so I can be where I am and do what I do," she says. "And I feel humbled."